The FOX medical drama The Resident premiered in January 2018 and is already in its third season. It focuses on the lives and work of a team of doctors at the fictional Chastain Park Memorial Hospital. With a wealth of medical dramas on television, both in production and living on in reruns (quick, name ten!), it can be hard for yet another to stand out.
The Resident does so by having slower building drama, with storylines that can last an entire season. Fans of the show are incredibly dedicated, so we know their reviews on IMDb mean a lot. Here are the ten episodes they’ve ranked the highest (so far).
00:42:30 (8.5/10)
Chastain Park Memorial Hospital loses power during a storm, which everyone assumes is the culprit. The danger heightens when it’s revealed that, in fact, the hospital was hacked. While they search for the source of the attack, the staff are forced to threat their patients without technology—including a heart surgery that cannot wait.
The show usually focuses on the doctors, so this kind of big hospital-wide event is less common. Most people really loved that about this episode, but some people really hate it because very similar storylines have happened on Chicago Med and Grey’s Anatomy. And yet, it’s currently one of the highest rated episodes of the series.
Rude Awakening and the Raptor (8.5/10)
Many of the show’s best episodes came in season two, when the show had really settled into itself. However, this season one episode proves that there really were some gems hidden in its initial shaky run.
After surgical resident Bradley Jenkins falls through the skylight in the hospital, the team must both save his life and figure out how he ended up there in the first place. Meanwhile, Dr. Mina Okafor has to give the uppity and arrogant cardiothoracic surgeon AJ Austin a tour of Chastain Park Memorial Hospital and convince him to join the hospital full time. The fired Nicolette Nevin continues to investigate Lane Hunter, but is facing greater risks than she bargained for.
Adverse Events (8.6/10)
The ongoing saga with the corrupt QuoVadis and their malfunctioning medical devices just got even worse as the doctors start to make clear connections between devices and increasing health problems. Conrad and Devon, frustrated and furious, agree to cut Chastain’s ties with QuoVadis and shut the company down by any means necessary. Meanwhile, Randolph Bell insists on treating a rare medical issue that one of the hospital’s janitors is exhibiting.
Fans often praise the show for its focus on the corrupt side of the insurance and medical device industries. It’s a very different take on hospital life than a focus on increasingly dramatic medical issues and personal flare ups.
After the Fall (8.6/10)
Lane Hunter, who committed insurance fraud by over-prescribing and over-treating patients, is released on bail. Even though Dr. Bell posted her bail, he feels trapped by her ongoing manipulation. Meanwhile, Dr. Conrad Hawkins is treating one of Hunter’s former mistreated patients. Of course, the story of Lane Hunter won’t end well. In fact, this episode gives us the satisfying and violent close to her story.
In a more personal-life-focused side story, Devon is beginning to panic because after canceling his wedding at the last minute, he hasn’t heard from Julian, the woman he has fallen for.
Virtually Impossible (8.7/10)
The drama with Julian Booth continues when her empty car is found inside a nearby lake. Devon takes it upon himself to investigate and find out what happened. He finds a call on her phone to an FDA investigator, which makes him very suspicious.
Meanwhile, doctors Conrad, Kit, Mina, and Austin decide to perform an extremely risky surgery: a triple organ transplant, including both lungs. The patient is Eloise Campbell, a medical student. Her parents agree to the operation, and even agree to donate their lungs when the donor’s lungs are damaged en route. This episode will keep any viewer on the edge of their seat.
The Germ (8.7/10)
Medical device rep Julian Booth shows up pushing some of her new medical devices. CEO/Chief of Surgery Dr. Randolph Bell decides to use her products instead of their normal supplier. Meanwhile, the more heartwarming story—and the one that puts the episode in the top 5 episodes of the show—is the story revolving around the little boy with cancer.
Dr. Conrad Hawkins and Dr. Nicolette Nevin have to break the news to a young boy’s mother that his cancer is terminal. To try to make his last days special, they decide to team up with his brother to pull off a police fantasy starring half the hospital’s staff.
Betrayal (8.9)
Dr. AJ “The Raptor” Austin’s mentor, Abe Benedict, is found in his home, nearly dead from an apparent suicide attempt. The team works desperately to save his life, especially since he is the only reliable witness against Gordon Page, the corrupt owner of QuoVadis. However, Abe needs the ECMO machine to survive, and unfortunately so does a younger, much more stable patient. With only one machine and two urgent patients, the team has to decide who takes priority. Luckily, Devon comes up with a genius solution that allows the doctors to save them both.
Some people consider the episode’s storyline outright Emmy-baiting, but most of the voters still loved the episode.
The Dance (8.9/10)
Dr. Devon Pravesh has mounting doubts about his wedding to journalist Priya Nair. Despite being together for a long time (since before the show started), Devon is starting to have a one-sided emotional affair with medical device rep Julian Booth. Meanwhile, Conrad works on his relationship with Marshall and Bell takes a risky offer hoping that it will erase a mistake from the past.
People who loved the episode praise it for getting back to what made The Resident so good in the first place: the hearts and lives of the doctors instead of using cheap and dramatic stunts to drive the plot forward.
Total Eclipse of the Heart (9.0/10)
In this season finale, Dr. Conrad Hawkins has to team up with someone he never thought he’d have to in order to save Dr. Nicolette Nevin as her face off with sociopathic Dr. Lane Hunter comes to a close. At the hospital, Devon also found another victim of Lane’s dangerous ‘cures’ for the fake cancers she invented to commit insurance fraud. CEO and Chief of Surgery Randolph Bell realizes that his romantic relationship with Lane could trap him as an accomplice, so he chooses to trap her instead.
The episode is an immensely satisfying end to a turbulent first season. It pays off the risks the characters took all season long and left fans feeling optimistic about the show.
If Not Now, When? (9.2/10)
The best episode of the series (so far) is, surprisingly, neither a season premier nor finale. Oftentimes, explosive stories are saved for those episodes to promote viewership. But in the case of The Resident, the story of a black mother who isn’t getting adequate treatment is the show's most celebrated story.
Devon is concerned when a woman’s complaints are ignored during and after her delivery. When the older treating surgeon ignores him as well, Devno realizes that this is a standard risk for non-white patients and decides that the problem needs to be addressed on a higher level. He takes the problem to Bell and pushes the Chief to do the right thing and pass more stringent and safer procedures.